Maximum Exposure: The Heartlands Series

by Harper, Jenny

  One final card and she was done. It was the hardest of all to write. But it was another door that had to be closed.

  Hi Ben,

  I liked it so much in Nice I decided to stay! Have been offered a job too good to resist. And anyway, the vino is better and cheaper than anything in Hailesbank. What can I say? Hope you find a job soon – sure you will.

  Be happy.

  Daisy x

  Like the letter to Lizzie, this one took her three drafts. She had to get the tone and the message right. She had to wrap things up, she couldn’t just disappear.

  Be happy.

  Daisy

  She pondered for a long time on the question of whether to add the final kiss. Her pen hovered over the space for a long time, then she laid it down again. Finally, she snatched it up, added the ‘x’ impetuously, sealed it in the envelope, stuck a stamp on, and put the letter with the others to post, before she could change her mind. He could read into it what he wanted. Nothing probably. What did it matter? She’d blown it with Ben and that was that. Now she was half a continent away and that part of her life was well and truly over. A new existence was opening up in front of her.

  Chapter Four

  Ben got Daisy’s card three days later.

  Hi Ben,

  I liked it so much in Nice I decided to stay! … been offered a job … Be happy.

  Daisy x

  He studied the final kiss for some time.

  Daisy x

  Daisy kiss. Kiss Daisy. If only he could. If only he had. Maybe if he had, his life would be very different now. He should have been bolder, seized the opportunity when he’d had it, told her how he felt, even if it risked being rebuffed. But then, she’d been stuck on Jack Hedderwick.

  ‘Did I fuck it up completely, Nefertiti?’ he asked the dummy. For some reason she was wearing a feather arrangement on the back of her head. ‘A fascinator’ his mother called it. Road kill, thought Ben. Nef was beginning to get on his nerves – and besides, it was time he left. He hadn’t been gainfully employed since The Hailesbank Herald had been closed, nearly a month ago now. What’s more, since Daisy had left for Nice, his relationship with Lizzie had seemed increasingly meaningless.

  Nefertiti’s blue eyes stared at him accusingly.

  ‘Really?’ Ben asked. ‘You think I should have said something that night I picked her up from Jack Hedderwick’s?’

  Boy, Daisy had been in a state. She looked as though she’d been fighting with the prize pansies. What the hell had happened? He unclasped his hands from behind his head, uncrossed his legs, stood up, and stretched. Then he walked across to the bay window where Nefertiti Gillies stood, picked her up, and waltzed across the room with her.

  ‘Are you dancing?’

  ‘Are you asking?’

  ‘I’m asking.’

  ‘Then I’m dancing.’

  Fuck it Daisy x.

  She had no idea what she had done to him.

  The drive to Lizzie’s cottage from Ben’s parents’ house necessitated stopping at three sets of traffic lights, negotiating one roundabout, and navigating a short one-way system. As luck would have it, Ben was held up at every point along the route, so Nefertiti had her day in the sun.

  ‘Nice one!’ A man in a luminous vest and hard hat stuck his thumbs up and grinned.

  ‘Phwoar!’ ‘Grab an eyeful of that!’ and ‘Shagtastic!’ were the only comments he could pick out from a gaggle of lads clustered round the crossing at the end of town. Two women pushing prams did a double take, then laughed. And a whole crocodile of schoolchildren, spotting Nef in the front seat, giggled, pointed, and squealed. Ben grinned. That was the great thing about Nef – she’d always been an attention grabber. She was a burden too, though. You couldn’t stick Nef in a cupboard, it would be insulting. You had to dress her and talk to her. It was like having a wife, though the good thing was, she never answered back. She deserved to be loved. And he knew just who would give her the love she needed now.

  ‘Hello, Ben,’ Lizzie answered the door, her arms full of some fancy printed fabric. Her hair was scooped up at the back and her black cardigan, buttoned with tiny gleaming pearls to just above her cleavage, seemed to have a dozen or more dressmaking pins criss-crossed near the shoulder, put there, he supposed, for ease of access and safe keeping rather than as a barrier to an embrace. ‘I wasn’t expecting to see you this morning.’

  ‘I wasn’t planning on coming.’ He bent and kissed not the lips that were offered, but her cheek.

  ‘Are you coming in?’

  ‘I brought you a gift.’

  ‘Yeah?’ Lizzie glanced at his hands, which were empty.

  ‘She’s in the car.’

  ‘She?’

  Ben turned and went back to where the car was parked. Behind him, he was aware of Lizzie, standing puzzled in the doorway. He hadn’t rehearsed this. He hadn’t even thought about it until this morning, when the course of action he had to take had suddenly become clear. He stood for a second in the warmth of the summer sunshine. From the trees above the cottage, he could hear the melodic calls of a dozen small birds and out of the corner of his eye, he sensed their flittering movement. The wild roses by the gate were in full bloom and the warmth was bringing out their scent. It was sweet and richly perfumed, heady. The slightest of breezes ruffled his hair. He liked it here. He’d always liked this place. For a second he wavered. Was he doing the right thing?

  ‘Need any help?’ Lizzie’s voice reached him, breaking the spell.

  ‘No, no, I’ll be there in a sec.’ He wrenched open the car door and began to manoeuvre Nefertiti out into the garden.

  Lizzie was laughing. ‘What the heck have you got there, Ben?’

  The last trailing leg was released by the sill and she was out. He’d relieved her of the fascinator, dressed her in his old joggers and sweatshirt, and topped her off with a baseball cap. His present to Lizzie. A memento. A farewell gift.

  ‘May I introduce Nefertiti Gillies?’ He made the dummy bow. ‘Or, perhaps I should say, Nefertiti Little. Of course, you may want to rename her completely and if so, please feel free.’ He frogmarched Nef back to the cottage and held her out to Lizzie.

  ‘For me?’ Lizzie was laughing. ‘Is this the dummy Daisy told me about? The one you brought all the way from London?’

  ‘Can I put her in your room? I thought you might like her for your fabrics. Or to hang your scarves on. Or to model your hats. I dunno, Lizzie, she just seems exactly you somehow.’ He turned to her, his face serious. ‘Thing is, Lizzie, I’m moving on. I hoped you’d take care of her for me.’

  Lizzie, reaching up to embrace him, froze in shock. Her arms dropped, her mouth slackened, her eyes opened wide. ‘Right,’ she said, her tone expressionless. She stood back a step and crossed her arms in one of the swiftest changes from loving to defensive he’d ever seen. ‘Just like that.’

  ‘No ties. No promises. No seeing other people while we see each other. And no tears when it’s time to move on.’ He quoted back at her the agreement she had insisted on when they had started out.

  ‘Yes,’ she acknowledged, swinging away from him, her face unreadable.

  ‘Come on, Lizzie. You were the one who laid down the rules.’

  ‘Yeah. I know. It’s funny though,’ she turned back and paused, reaching up to let her hair down. For a minute there was silence as her words hung in the air and she twirled it round her fingers, let it hang loose again, then twirled it up and stuck the pin back in with a savage movement, ‘funny because for the first time ever, I don’t want to let a lover go.’

  He hadn’t anticipated that. For him, Lizzie had always been an interlude. A delightful one, it had to be admitted, but no more than that. And he’d expected that she would feel the same way.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  He could see her small breasts moving up and down as her breath quickened. Poetry in motion. Her body was a kind of poetry, perfectly symmetrical, beautifully shaped, with its own rhythms and
form. Beautiful – but for him, in the end, empty verse, lines without resonance.

  ‘Is it because of Daisy?’ she asked.

  He couldn’t look at her. He turned away and pressed his face to the window. You couldn’t describe the space outside as a garden. It was more of a wilderness on which some small semblance of order had been imposed. There was grass you could walk on, but it was more like a meadow than a lawn. There was a border, of sorts, with bushes that someone, in the cottage’s past, had planted with care, but they had grown unkempt and ragged. In the corner a large clump of a pretty, wispy red flower with long, thick leaves like iris leaves, dominated the space. It looked as if it had colonised a large part of the rest of the garden too. Some things had to be controlled.

  Is it because of Daisy?

  If he changed the focal length of his vision, Ben could see his own reflection in the window. The sun, streaming into the kitchen, was catching the reddish brown of his hair. It looked rough. Maybe he’d forgotten to brush it this morning. Once it had come to him what he had to do, he’d acted on it with all speed.

  Is it because of Daisy?

  ‘I don’t know, Lizzie, that’s the honest truth. I think I’ve lost her.’

  He heard the sound of a nose being blown, then Lizzie’s voice came again, more controlled now. ‘You could try again, Ben. She’s over Jack now.’

  He turned quickly. ‘You don’t know that,’ he said, his voice rough. ‘She’s run away, hasn’t she?’

  ‘Maybe she’s angry. Maybe she’s confused. Maybe she’s hurt. But I do know that it’s finally got into her sweet, obstinate brain that Jack is no longer available.’ She drew a deep breath. ‘And I would put money on it that you could find a way to reach her.’

  Ben glanced at her. She was standing very tall and erect, her shoulders square, her head tilted back, her chin up, as though she was fighting her own inner battle. But her voice, when it came, was very gentle. ‘Reach her heart, I mean, Ben.’

  The generosity of it nearly broke him.

  Chapter Five

  The smell drifting out to her table from inside the small restaurant was delectable, meat cooking with herbs of some kind, fragrant and mouth-watering. For some reason, the memory of Lizzie’s fridge in the cottage came back to Daisy. They’d been so poor at managing things, she and Lizzie. Neither of them ever remembered to cover half-eaten dishes of food, or throw things out, and as a result they were for ever stumbling across yoghurt that was green with mould or baked beans welded into a sculptural whole by a thick crust. Already it seemed another world away. Perhaps now that she was out of the way, Ben would have moved in. She wondered idly if that thought upset her, but before she could work out the answer, a man stopped at her table.

  ‘May I sit here?’

  For a minute, Daisy forgot to breathe. This was the most beautiful man she had ever seen. Teeth whiter than the waves, eyes as brown as conkers and shinier. Fingers long and graceful. Tight white jeans slipping down over the slimmest of hips, and a stomach flatter and more muscular than any pale imitation at the Fitness Centre – and she’d seen him before. On Sunday, when she’d been writing her letters. He’d smiled at her from the other balcony when she’d laughed.

  ‘No, do sit down.’

  ‘Thank you. I am Majik.’ He held out a hand. She took it. It was dry and cool and soft. Majik was here, spraying magic in the air.

  He put down an instrument case – his guitar? – and studied the menu. ‘Thank you. It’s so busy tonight, and this is my favourite restaurant.’

  ‘Mine too.’

  They were sitting in the street just below L’Hirondelle. Now that the pay checks were coming in, Daisy allowed herself to eat out sometimes and the food in these back streets was not tourist Nice prices.

  Majik was entrancing. By the time the food arrived, steaming and fragrant and delicious, Daisy was captivated. His voice lilted and swayed and rose and fell with every heavily accented word, to the accompaniment of a gentle tinkling chink chink of his silver bracelets. Daisy watched them, mesmerised. They slipped up his arm as he raised it in some expressive gesture, then plummeted to his wrist again with a jangle as he reached for his glass or his fork or spread his hands to make a point. He wore his hair pulled back tight, in a pony tail, which flicked gently from left to right as he moved his head.

  At ten, he drained the last of his wine, stood up, and bowed with comic formality. ‘I must go. I must work. We shall meet again soon, Daysee?’

  ‘I hope so.’ I do hope so.

  She watched him as he picked up his guitar and wove his way down the crowded pavement – young, lithe, casual, colourful, and completely bewitching.

  Daisy never supposed for one second that she would see Majik again so soon, but later that evening, unable to sleep because of the heat, she slid open the door to her balcony and stepped out into the cool of the night air.

  Three o’clock. The sounds of the night were beginning to recede. Even the traffic had dwindled to a trickle. Across the rooftops she could just see the dark expanse where the sea rolled in to the long beach by the Promenade des Anglais. She felt oddly at peace. She padded across the small balcony, her feet bare. The tiles were still warm from the day’s sun. She leant on the rails and stared into the blackness.

  ‘Pssst. Daysee!’

  She jumped back.

  ‘Here Daysee. ’Allo.’

  She turned her face to the sound. Majik was standing on the balcony next door, his dark hair catching the soft light of the moon, the sculptured profile of his cheekbones dark against the white wall of the pension.

  ‘Hello Majik. You startled me.’

  ‘Sorry. Why are you not asleep?’

  ‘Too hot. You?’

  He shrugged. ‘I ’ave been working.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Can I come across?’ He gestured towards her balcony. There was a gap of about two feet between the railings, below that a drop of three storeys. Before she could reply he had climbed onto the short stretch of stone wall just before his own railings started and stood, perched like a bird, but perilously.

  Daisy’s heart jumped violently in her chest and started hammering. ‘Christ, Majik, be careful!’ she said in alarm, but he had already leapt, safely, across the gap, throwing himself into her arms in the process. She staggered back with the force of it before bracing her feet and bringing his flight to a halt.

  ‘Dear God, Majik, why did you do that? You’re mad! Quite, quite mad.’ She was angry with him, scared at what might have happened. If he had fallen …

  He laughed softly. ‘Mad per’aps. Mad for you, pretty Daysee. Mad to get at you so I flew …’ he opened his arms wide and flapped them, birdlike, the bracelets tinkling softly, ‘… phttt, and here I am.’

  ‘You could have been killed! Haven’t you heard of doors? All you had to do was …’

  Majik lowered his head, tilted her face up towards him by cupping one slender dark hand under her chin, and turned his full attention to kissing her. It was gentle at first, like the touch of velvet on her lips, soft and warm. Then he became more insistent. Daisy’s heart, which had been beating at triple pace for the last five minutes, quickened still more. If he had swept her up in his arms and carried her in to her bed and made love to her, she would have been powerless to resist him. He didn’t. Instead he stepped back, smiled sweetly, and said, ‘And now, Daysee, I will leave you to sleep. Until next time.’

  He turned, as if ready to jump back across the treacherous gap.

  ‘Stop! Majik, for heaven’s sake.’ She grabbed his shirt and swung him round to face her.

  ‘Daysee, sweetest Daysee, eet ees late and I must sleep. You too.’ His fingers trailed softly down her cheek.

  ‘Yes. You’re right. But there is a door through there,’ she pointed inside her room, ‘and it leads to the corridor. And you know what? There’s another door just along that corridor and it goes into your room. You do have the key?’

  He laughed. ‘I ’ave the ke
y, but zat ees boring. You are not romantic.’

  ‘Damn romance. I don’t want to die tonight of a heart attack. Now go,’ and she steered him firmly through her room, opened the door, and pushed him gently into the corridor. ‘Good night.’

  ‘Good night, sweet Daysee.’ He brushed her lips once more with his own, and then he was gone. She closed her door and leant against it, her knees buckling. She had just been kissed by the most handsome man in the world – and she couldn’t wait for it to happen again.

  Chapter Six

  ‘So you don’t know where you’ll be staying? You’re just going to set off?’

  Ben grinned at his mother affectionately. ‘I’m going to be moving around, sure. I need to do my research.’

  ‘The guide book?’

  ‘French rustic food and wine. What could be better?’

  Kath Gillies gave a rueful smile and the laughter lines at the corner of her eyes crinkled. ‘Anyone would think I haven’t been feeding you properly here.’

  ‘You’ve fed me too well,’ Ben tucked his arm round her fondly and he planted a kiss on the top of her head, ‘you know you have. But this time I’m going to be paid for eating.’

  ‘Only my son could land on his feet like that.’

  Martin, finishing his breakfast tea, looked up from his newspaper. ‘Give the boy some credit, Kath. He went out and got the work. It didn’t just happen by itself.’

  Ben might be footloose but he was not fancy free. He had a destination in mind and a goal. His savings wouldn’t last for ever. It had taken him a couple of weeks of phoning around, but he eventually managed to make contact with a publisher who had commissioned a new series of guide books.

  ‘Fancy France?’ The editor sounded friendly and he had a gap to fill. ‘One of my writers has gone and broken his leg, so there’s the chapter on food and wine going begging. Think you could cope with that?’

  ‘I reckon I could force myself.’